ry considerable influence: his advice was more sought,
his suggestions more heeded, and his power in reconciling certain rival
jealousies was perhaps greater than would have been the case if he
had actually entered either House of Parliament, and thrown himself
exclusively into the ranks, not only of one party, but of one section of
a party. Nevertheless, such suspense could not last very long; he must
decide at all events before the next session. Once he was seen in
the arena of his old triumphs, on the benches devoted to strangers
distinguished by the Speaker's order. There, recognized by the older
members, eagerly gazed at by the younger, Guy Darrell listened calmly,
throughout a long field-night, to voices that must have roused from
forgotten graves kindling and glorious memories; voices of those
veterans now--by whose side he had once struggled for some cause which
he had then, in the necessary exaggeration of all honest enthusiasm,
identified with a nation's life-blood. Voices, too of the old
antagonists over whose routed arguments he had marched triumphant amidst
applauses that the next day rang again through England from side to
side. Hark! the very man with whom, in the old battle-days, he had been
the most habitually pitted, is speaking now! His tones are embarrassed,
his argument confused. Does he know who listens yonder? Old members
think so,--smile; whisper each other, and glance significantly where
Darrell sits.

Sits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, intent, seemingly, perhaps
really, unconscious of the sensation he excites. What an eye for an
orator! how like the eye in a portrait; it seems to fix on each other
eye that seeks it,--steady, fascinating. Yon distant members, behind the
Speaker's chair, at the far distance, feel the light of that eye travel
towards them. How lofty and massive, among all those rows of human
heads, seems that forehead, bending slightly down, with the dark strong
line of the weighty eyebrow! But what is passing within that secret
mind? Is there mournfulness in the retrospect? Is there eagerness to
renew the strife? Is that interest in the hour's debate feigned or real?
Impossible for him who gazed upon that face to say. And that eye would
have seemed to the gazer to read himself through and through to the
heart's core, long ere the gazer could hazard a single guess as to the
thoughts beneath that marble forehead,--as to the emotions within the
heart over which, in old senat